Weekly Meal Plan + Books We’ve Been Reading

This past week we embarked on our first week of Summer Learning, complete with creating an earthworm farm, traveling through the Middle Ages, some art, and lots of reading.

Books the Kids Are Reading

We finished a really fun book called Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle during read-aloud time, and read a few books for our Summer Reading Challenge. We’re really into those Magic Tree House books: Kate reads 2 or 3 a day! At the library this week, she chose a biography on Laura Ingalls Wilder, parts of which she read aloud to us. It amazes me how simple life was back then. Challenging, yes! But without all the struggles of keeping up that we have today. Kate Daddy has also become engrossed in the Little House books as he is reading them to the girls at night and continuing to read them by himself until way past bedtime 🙂

Books I’ve Been Reading

On my Summer Reading List, I finished The Book Thief, which I highly recommend. Set during the Holocaust in Germany, this book follows a young girl who first witnesses her brother’s death from malnourishment and is then given up for adoption by her mother. Through her relationship with her foster father and the Jew they hide in their basement as well as other friendships, she discovers the power of words and uses them as a source of comfort, a record, even a weapon against Hitler. This book more than any I’ve read in quite some time really gave me greater confidence in humanity. There’s so much honorable and pure and lovely in it, despite the language. If you’re looking for a good read, try The Book Thief.

I’m also continuing to read and journal through Andrew Murray’s Abiding in Christ. This book is a deep read, but each day I’m discovering God’s promises surrounding our relationship with Him and I am daily blessed. Here are some excerpts for you:

“God gives us Christ, and in Him are hidden the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Let us be content to possess Christ, to dwell in Him, to make Him our life. Only in a deeper searching into Him will we find the knowledge we desire” (47).

“Understand that this holy nature within you has its root and life in Christ in heaven, and can only grow and become strong as the interaction between it and its source is uninterrupted” (61).

“Abiding in Jesus is not a work that needs our minds to be engaged each moment, or our attention to be directly and actively occupied with it. It is an entrusting of ourselves to the keeping of Eternal Love, in the faith that it will abide near us and with its holy presence watch over us and ward off evil, even when we have to be intently occupied with other things. In this way the heart has rest, peace, and joy in the consciousness of being kept when it cannot keep itself” (82).

We can be certain of our hope in Christ, but daily we must commit to abiding in Him. He will keep and sustain us even in the midst of the chaos and busyness of life. As a wife and mom of 4 children, that promise comforts me.

I also just started reading The Hobbit (my fun read) and The Living Page (a Charlotte Mason look at notebooking and children, which is quite riveting, despite the subject matter).

Are you reading anything you would recommend?

We’re still in the midst of summer break, but I’m getting ready to place my curriculum and book orders for the Fall. I like to gather all my materials in advance so I can plan early even though things never go as I think they will 🙂 Still, planning is so fun! I’m super excited that this year we’re starting Latin.

On to the weekly meal plan . . .

It’s July 4th weekend so we will be going to my parents’ and Daniel’s parents’ houses for cookouts. It should be fun! Here’s what’s on our weekly meal plan: